It was in the low and miserable hut we speak of, just as night set in of a raw November, that four of these raftsmen sat at their smoky fire, in company with two travellers on foot, whose humble means compelled them to await the arrival of some one rich enough to hire the raft. Meanly clad and wayworn were the strangers who now sat endeavoring to dry their dripping clothes at the blaze, and conversing in a low tone together. If the elder, dressed in a russet-colored blouse and a broad-leafed hat, his face almost hid in beard and moustaches, seemed by his short and almost grotesque figure a travelling showman, the appearance of the younger, despite all the poverty of his dress, implied a very different class.
He was tall and well knit, with a loose activity in all his gestures which almost invariably characterizes the Englishman; and though his dark hair and his bronzed cheek gave him something of a foreign look, there was a calm, cold self-possession in his air that denoted the Anglo-Saxon. He sat smoking his cigar, his head resting on one hand, and evidently listening with attention to the words of his companion. The conversation that passed will save us the trouble of introducing them to our reader, if he have not already guessed them.
“If we don't wait,” said the elder, “till somebody richer and better off than ourselves comes, we 'll have to pay seven francs for passin' in such a night as this.”
“It is a downright robbery to ask so much,” cried the other, angrily. “What so great danger is there, or what so great hardship, after all?”
“There is both one and the other, I believe,” replied he, in a tone evidently meant to moderate his passion; “and just look at the poor craytures that has to do it. They're as weak as a bit of wet paper; they haven't strength to make themselves heard when they talk out there beside the river.”
“The fellow yonder,” said the youth, “has got good brawny arms and sinewy legs of his own.”
“Ay, and he is starved after all. A cut of rye bread and an onion won't keep the heart up, nor a jug of red vinegar, though ye call it grape-juice. On my conscience, I 'm thinkin' that the only people that preserves their strength upon nothin' is the Irish. I used to carry the bags over Slieb-na-boregan mountain and the Turk's Causeway on wet potatoes and buttermilk, and never a day late for eleven years.”
“What a life!” cried the youth, in an accent of utter pity.
“Faix, it was an elegant life,—that is, when the weather was anyways good. With a bright sun shinin' and a fine fresh breeze blowin' the white clouds away over the Atlantic, my road was a right cheery one, and I went along inventin' stories, sometimes fairy tales, sometimes makin' rhymes to myself, but always happy and contented. There wasn't a bit of the way I had n't a name for in my own mind, either some place I read about, or some scene in a story of my own; but better than all, there was a dog,—a poor starved lurcher he was,—with a bit of the tail cut off; he used to meet me, as regular as the clock, on the side of Currah-na-geelah, and come beside me down to the ford every day in the year. No temptation nor flattery would bring him a step farther. I spent three-quarters of an hour once trying it, but to no good; he took leave of me on the bank of the river, and went away back with his head down, as if he was grievin' over something. Was n't that mighty curious?”
“Perhaps, like ourselves, Billy, he wasn't quite sure of his passport,” said the other, dryly.